Art & Perception

Painting From Life vs. From Photos

Painting From Life vs. From Photos

Proposed definition of art:

Art is the visual representation of that which people find important at an emotional level.

Here is Steve‘s reaction:

If so, every snapshot of your boyfriend/girlfriend at a photo booth is art. Every representation of a car is art. Every dog or cat image ever produced by any means is art. The definition becomes so all-encompassing it’s useless.

Why useless? If a photographer or (photo booth) accomplishes the same essential function today that required a skilled artist in the past, why do we need to change the meaning of the word ‘art’? Bread once was produced with intense manual labor. Now it is made by machines. The function of the bread is the same. Why should we change the definition of the word ‘bread’?

The proposed definition of art says that art is what it always has been. If an image of what you find important is made in a photo booth, why is it less art than if it was painted by an artist? Because the artist takes more trouble to produce the image and charges more? If only that were true! But in reality, the photo serves the function of art. Why pretend otherwise? The question of importance is, is that photo any good? Can a painter make something so extraordinarily special as to justify the extra cost? If the painting costs more, it should be because it has something extra to offer, not because of some art brand label.

The power of art, if any, must be in the work itself, not the word ‘art’.

Why do artists create them? Why are viewers interested in them? Is it exhibitionism on one side and voyeurism on the other?  For reasons I can’t clearly explain I’ve never been comfortable with self portraits by any artist.   So that’s what you look like or want me to see about you?  Fine. Thanks. Now go away. I would love to hear from others how they feel about self portraits, their own and those by other artists, any other artist.  At the risk of revealing too much about myself and just how fucked up I am, I’m simply going to express–in a kind of stream of conciousness way–how my own self portraits make me feel.  Uncomfortable (obviously). Silly. Naked. Exposed. Self-indulgent. Egotistical. Awkward.  Embarrassed. Validated (like a parking ticket). On the record.  That’s all I have to say on this subject. Short, sweet and revealing.

more… »

Painting From Life vs. From Photos

Art is the visual representation of that which people find important at an emotional level. Making art used to be a specialized profession that required years of training. Today, making art is no big deal. Anyone with a camera can make art; take a photo of your kid, it’s art. It’s that simple.

The so-called Art World has successfully appropriated the word ‘art’ and created a lot of confusion in the process. We can resolve the difficulty simply by recognizing what Art for the Art World really is — a brand label. Let’s call it Art^TM.

The players in the Art World would like you to believe that they are the natural and rightful heirs of a great cultural history. Artists like Michelangelo, supported by patrons like the Medici, devoted themselves to the representation of that which people found important at an emotional level. Everyone knows that the players in the contemporary Art World are not the real descendants of the likes of Michelangelo or the Medici, of course. But the lack of an obvious competitor supports the illusion of rightful inheritance of something important.

Art^TM — that which the Art World deals in — is something that most people don’t understand or like. This is one reason that making Art^TM is generally not a viable profession, despite the huge social effort put into training artists at art schools and universities. People tend not to spend much money on Art^TM, because it does not represent for them anything important at an emotional level. In other words, Art^TM is generally not even art.

What is the real art world? It’s all around us, of course, so ever-present that we hardly notice its presence. Look at the internet, magazines, TV, bill boards. Art is everywhere. Drawings, photos, sculpture — cheap, low quality for the most part, but art nonetheless. We usually think of it as advertisement, or department store mannequin, or porn. These things are more art than Art^TM.

How to be a successful artist today (in the traditional sense of an individual making creative representations for profit)? A daunting challenge, to say the least. Dropping some illusions, distinguishing between Art^TM and real art would be helpful.

The Art World is inadequate to support its people. Artists tend to subsidize collectors. The real art world on the other hand is so powerful that it doesn’t even need to use the brand label. The question I ask is, how can an individual artist be a player in the real art world and still retain identity as an artist?

Over the last few months, several posters have mentioned books that have been important to them. Karl considers Cennino Cennini to have written the best how-to book for painters. Doug gave us a report on a concise and readable book about photography by Steve Edwards. Lisa Hunter talked about her own book, “The Intrepid Art Collector,” in an interview. Rex cited in one post a motivational book for painters (the correct title is “How to Make a Living as a Painter,” by Kenneth Harris). David, in a comment, recommended “Seeing Is Forgetting the Name of the Thing One Sees: A Life of Contemporary Artist Robert Irwin.”

What is your favorite art book?

One of my mine, I just discovered, has popped up in comments a couple of times: Art and Fear, by David Bayles and Ted Orland (that’s Orland’s “One and a Half Domes, Yosemite” at left). As it happens, they are both photographers, but the book is not at all confined to photography or even visual art. As you might guess from the title, it’s a frank discussion of issues that are faced by artists that relate to making public creative work that can be very personal. Even if you’ve never been the slightest bit nervous about putting your work out there, I still think the book is helpful as an unusually readable treatment of what artists do and how they do it. It will help you think about your own process. Just read it.

Over to you: help me add to the list!

I was recently asked to loan one of my paintings for a company art lobby and I went into a frenzied state of deciding the right frame for the picture. I searched for about a week without too much success until I was lucky to chance on a dark wood frame. One of these days I will have to lug the painting, frame and all to the corporate building where it will hang for a year. 

This set me thinking on the following: 

-Do you decide beforehand the ‘right’ frame (that in your opinion is the most suitable one for a particular painting/photo) or do you ask your client for suggestions or is it a mixture of both? 

-Is the whole framing thing passé now? I was in a couple of Chelsea galleries last week and not a single oil was framed (the artists did not even bother to hide the fact that the edges were dirty from all the wear and tear)? Is that a new trend?

I would be very interested in your thoughts…

Karl always asked me about the relative size of my paintings (the internet does not do a proper job of projecting the size..) This is a picture of my three year old son posing next a couple of my ‘unframed’ paintings.